the third sex

I had some interesting insights recently as to what prompts the formation of a ladyboy. I was talking to a young gay guy, who was 18 years old and had just landed a job at the makeup department of one of Bangkok’s largest department stores. He was explaining that he is from Roi Et, in Isaan, one of the regions that has more than its fair share of ladyboys.

There were, he said, many young gays growing up in that province. Life in and around Roi Et is not easy for working class Thais, and the temptations for the average young man to take to drugs, booze or petty crime, rather than succumb to the mind-numbing manual work that his father and all those before him had to do in order to survive, are considerable.

He said he found the girls of his neighbourhood to be consistently pushy, eager to get married and have children, anything to get away from their oppressive and poverty-stricken home life. Several of his friends had got girls pregnant when they were in their mid-teens. Some had knuckled down ruefully to mundane lives, while others had simply run away.

When he was an adolescent, my young friend had had no particularly gay inclinations. He and his friends had done the usual things that youngsters do, flashing their cocks around, but there was no sexual frisson between him and any of the members of his group.

At the same time, he was wary of girls. He was excited by them, but had heard so many horror stories of older boys being trapped into marriage, that he began to distrust them. “I was scared of even being in the same room, breathing the same air, in case I made one pregnant!” he said.

When he was 14, he had had a crush on an older boy, who had been working in Bangkok. The boy told him how easy it was to make money in a gay bar, and that there was no need to actually be gay to do it. Then the older boy had shown him a few things, which made my young friend reconsider his attitude towards his sexuality.

As he grew up, he began to seek the company of older boys, and to find comfort in going to bed with them. He said there was no feeling of involvement, it simply became a sexual adventure. He began to move in Roi Et’s gay circles, and this of course brought him into the world of ladyboys. He told me that he was very much aware, in the early years of adolescence, that there were kids of his age experimenting with dressing as girls. None of his friends seemed to find this strange, but he was also aware that these fledgling ladyboys were causing considerable upset to the conservative adults of the community.

It was understandable that their families were upset, he explained, but also he could see that their rebellion – for that is partly what it was – was upsetting the established order.

“There was a lot of tolerance for them, but at the same time people were angry at them because they were rejecting their community standards. They were upsetting everything. But this only drove them on to be even more flamboyant and outrageous.”

The girls were also upset, he said. The young ladyboys found regular companionship with older boys and with men, even married men. They always seemed to have money, because their men friends gave them gifts. Nobody expected a ladyboy to work in the fields or the factories. Not the attractive ones, anyway.

What made them experiment in the first place, I asked him.

“Some were naturally effeminate. Some did it simply because their friends did it. Some did it because it meant belonging to an exclusive group. Some identified closely with their mothers, because their fathers were drunk or violent, or both. Some saw a theatrical career ahead of them.

“You must remember that we Thais do not condemn people for their sexuality,” he said. “We also do not think it strange that someone prefers to dress as a girl, and to behave like a girl. There is no shame for a man to have a relationship with a ladyboy.”

He added that an attractive ladyboy can always find men who will support her. If she stays in her home village or town, she will be taken care of and probably be able to save enough money to open a small business – maybe just a food stall, or a stall in the market selling flowers or clothes. But enough to get out of the dreadful dead-end of labouring jobs.

Had he ever had any desire to become a ladyboy himself? No, he said, although he had joined in sessions with ladyboys, putting on makeup and even dressing up. “They were fun times, but I just didn’t feel I could go that extra step and become a ladyboy,” he said. “I am a man. I have a cock. I look like a man.”

Being gay seems to have released his creative abilities. He enjoys doing makeup, and has an ambition to study interior design or landscape design. “I understand ladyboys,” he told me. “I understand gays. I understand straight guys. From where I am, I think I have a pretty good understanding of people.”